This was surely the most rousing, exhilarating show of the year thus far. The Festival Hall was packed for two bands that have sold very few records in the UK, let alone enjoyed expensive record company publicity campaigns, but have both become wildly popular on the strength of just a handful of live shows. Neither of them sing in English, and both operate in that cheerfully experimental world music zone where Latin dance music collides with hip-hop and any other styles that come to hand. Getting them to appear together, on the first night of the La Linea Latin Festival, was an inspired booking.
First up were Orishas, the outfit who prove that not all great Cuban musicians are pensioners. By the middle of the first song, they had the crowd out of their seats and surging towards the stage - a record only beaten here by the Rai star Khaled, whose audience were on their feet before he even came on - and from then on in the show was one continual party.
Orishas were dressed like any western rap crew, in their army fatigues, dark glasses and T-shirts, but what made them special was the slick, skilful and careful way in which they treated the songs of their Cuban heritage. The three vocalists were backed by congas and turntables (courtesy of self-styled DJ Nasser) and prowled and danced across the stage mixing the rhythmic, high-speed rapping with remarkably well-sung bursts of salsa. Even the Buena Vista favourite Chan Chan was given an affectionate up-date from this exhilarating, melodic and genial bunch of rappers.
They were an almost impossible act to follow, but the equally cheerful and user-friendly Ozomatli didn't seem to care. They are from Los Angeles, where they started out playing political benefits, and developed a Latin-rap big-band style eclectic enough to reflect their multi-racial line-up. This is a predominantly Chicano band who sing in Spanish but whose 10-piece line-up happens to include a Japanese percussionist and Scottish trombonist, along with a black rapper who performs in English.
Their show was equally original. They came on from the back of the hall, pushing their way through the crowds while banging on drums and blowing horns. Once on stage they broke into a frantic, rapid-fire routine which, at different times, involved up to five vocalists and five percussionists, along with electric or acoustic guitars, a three-man brass section, and the obligatory turntables. The rap was mixed with bursts of salsa, samba or Colombian styles, with just a dash of funk, jazz and even ska added in, along with some Madness-inspired routines.
It was all hugely entertaining, even though they seemed to be more concerned with enjoying themselves than worrying about the sound balance. This is a band who still act like music enthusiasts, not stars, and their finest moment was to invite the vocally-superior Orishas back on stage to join them for surely the most impressive piece of US-Cuban collaboration we're likely to see all year.
The show ended with Ozomatli's rapper diving dangerously from the stage into the front row of the audience, as the rest of the band paraded back into the crowd, while still somehow performing a lengthy drum-and-percussion work-out that veered off into anything from jazz to Ode to Joy. It had been a great party.
